Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed

Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed is, like the first film, not to my taste, but it does represent a hair's breadth of improvement and kiddies will giggle, so do as you will. The sequel reunites the Scooby gang (including director Raja Gosnell and screenwriter James Gunn) to do battle with monsters and the memory of the original cartoon series, in which--as I recall--the monsters were always revealed to be hoaxes in the end. How we went from James Randi skepticism to John Edwards hocus-pocus is a matter to take up with the bean-counting studios, who know that genuine supernatural elements make for splashier special effects.

The conceit of digging into Mystery, Inc.'s storied past isn't bad, but the fatal lack of taste is. As much as, if not more than, the original, Scooby Doo 2 is loud, so very loud. Burger King product placement, American Idol cameo, and even post-credits Game Boy secret code drown out Gunn's "Be Yourself" theme (endlessly and cleverly iterated though it may be). Lillard again gets the best of the worst, croaking lines like "Hiding is our plan—in case you hadn't noticed, there's an Unidentified Freaky Object in here!" and "Like, they're totally having a montage in there without us!" in Casey Kasem's patented stoner-dude voice. The sequel's marginal improvement is owed to a dynamic third act which embraces a Ghostbusters paradigm of ectoplasmic goop and city-street-threatening terrors. But if, like me, you no longer have the energy of a five-year-old, you'll probably cry uncle long before then. So very loud.